


selfless & selfish

by crowkiiing



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Avatar the Last Airbender (AU), M/M, Multi, at all, genetically modified benders, i'll add w every new chapter or so, may have some descriptions of violence & needles as we go on, so tags will change as we go, there's gonna be more characters btw !! i don't plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-06 22:31:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowkiiing/pseuds/crowkiiing
Summary: he feels it in his bones, twisting and turning and writhing. it's hot, almost burning, and cold at the same time, chilling him through his skin. iwaizumi can feel it, something trying to come to life underneath his skin, something trying to crawl out, something trying to be released.he hold a hand out towards a glass, and pushes.the water explodes in the glass.





	1. one

“There’s another code yellow lockdown!”

Iwaizumi looks over from where he’s trying to haul Takeru up onto a tree. But, alas, the kid is clinging to him like he might die if he lets go, so Iwaizumi stops trying, turns to look at the villager that is bent over on his knees.

“Another one?”

“Another one!” The villager nods rapidly, eyes wide. “This is the third one in four days, and it’s almost like the attacks are speeding up-”

“Well, the first two was a boy having fun and mimicking the old tale of _The Boy Who Cried Canyon Crawler._ So I don’t really count it.”

“Uncle Hajime, what’s he talking about?” Takeru’s legs tighten around Iwaizumi’s torso- as if the kid couldn’t suffocate him any further.

“There’s another code yellow lockdown. Now, what do we do when it’s code yellow?”

Takeru scrunches up his nose. “Do we have to go for a code yellow? I wanna stay outside”

“It’s not like we can choose, kiddo. Town laws and it’s how we protect people- brave kids that are gonna be soldiers like you- from the attacks.”

The word soldiers curls uncomfortable in his mouth, but Iwaizumi’s not gonna discourage Takeru. He wants to be a soldier now, to fight against all the spirits, all the celestial bodies, and Iwaizumi doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he might die.

Takeru’s legs relinquish their hold, and Iwaizumi can breathe somewhat-normally as they do. The younger boy hops to the ground, slips his hand into Iwaizumi’s, and makes a face. “Gross, Uncle Hajime! Your hand is all sweaty!”

“Maybe that’s because it’s hot outside,” Iwaizumi rolls his eyes, but adjusts Takeru’s hold so that it doesn’t pull his fingers at an awkward angle. “All right, all right, let’s go to the house.”

“Can you make it to the radio station?” The villager asks just as Iwaizumi and Takeru take a step.

He turns his head to give the villager a dead stare. “Are you kidding me? I’ve got a kid with me. I don’t have the time to head to a radio station. Do you think you can make it?”

The villager doesn’t want to, he can tell. Running to the radio station is always risky, especially when you’re on the other side of the town like Iwaizumi is- there’s a chance that you won’t get home before it shifts into a code red and the spirits attack.

“Um- yes, probably.”

“Good luck.”

The villager glups and runs in the other direction. With a hand, Iwaizumi pats Takeru’s shoulder, making the kid move from where he had been standing still.

“All right. C’mon, soldier.”

Takeru skips the entire way, tugging the older man along with energy for the both of them. It’s not long before the house of his mother comes into view, a close friend of Iwaizumi.

“Takeru!”

The said boy bolts from Iwaizumi’s side, letting go of his hand and bounding up the steps to the worn house. Iwaizumi follows along, albeit at a slower pace, but as Takeru jumps into his mother’s arms, he’s on the steps.

“Hey,” Takeru’s mother greets, Iwaizumi lifts a hand and waves in response. “Why are you two home so early?”

“There’s a code yellow.”

Ren’s smile dips a little bit, slips from her face. It is pulled back up in another second, and she adjusts her hold on Takeru, who’s clinging to her like a monkey. “Another one?”

“Another one.”

“And it’s not a fluke this time?”

Iwaizumi scrunches up his nose, tosses a look to the side of the house. “Don’t think it is, no.”

As if on cue, the world of noise flares to life. The pole that rises into the sky next to the house has a speaker attached to it, noise frayed and cackling.

“All villagers, please pay attention. We are on a code yellow lockdown. I repeat, all villagers, please pay attention. We are on a code yellow lockdown.”

“Guess that’s an answer,” Iwaizumi mutters.

_Code yellow: all peoples within the bands of the village must retreat into their homes. Lock all the doors, close all windows. Make it so that anyone passing would think that the village is abandoned. Prepare belongings for a code red. A code yellow being initiated means that there has been a sighting of a spirit or a celestial body. To prevent further harm, all village inhabitants will retreat to their houses._

With a hand, Ren shoos Takeru inside, waits for Iwaizumi to follow.

“What’s a code yellow mean, Takeru?”

Takeru sighs like he’s been over this dozens of times. He probably has, Iwaizumi guesses, the school in town teaches it almost every week. After all, the spirit attacks have been happening more and more frequently, as if there are more portals between the spirit world and the real world.

Are they even portals? Iwaizumi doesn’t know much about the connection of the spirit world and the real world- hell, he’s not the Avatar. If he was, these attacks wouldn’t be happening. All the spirits make it clear that they want one thing from the real realm: the Avatar’s spirit.

“A code yellow means that another spirit came from the spirit world and looking at past patterns, is probably looking or seeking for the Avatar. According to them and also lack of appearance in the past few years, the Avatar is missing, both in body and spirit,” Takeru lists it off, easy and quick. Like it’s been memorized. “Everyone should progress to…”

Iwaizumi tunes him out, then, turning to where a built-in square hides their bags. Everyone in the village has bags hidden in their houses of needed possessions, valued possessions if they have to leave the town and evacuate. Takeru’s is a little drawstring bag, pastel blue and light green, with big alien patches.

Ren had said it was a gift from Takeru’s uncle, her brother. Shes told Iwaizumi that he’s around his age, which is seven years younger then her.

He grabs Takeru’s bag, tosses it to the kid. He’s unprepared, so the bag falls at his feet and Takeru slings it over his back without much more of a complaint. Next is Ren’s bag, which is a pale yellow, so pale that it’s nearly white. He hands it to her, then grabs his bag next, clenching it in his fist rather than slinging it over his bag.

“Now we just wait,” Ren says, folding her arms and staring up at the ceiling.

Iwaizumi does the same, face falling into a flat line as his mind wanders off. He doesn’t know where it all started, really - the attacks.

It was out of the blue, an innocent city that was doing their own business until something came out of the woods. It was like a spirit, they had said, came through with gaping jaws and their aura was furious … and it wrecked havoc on the town, killed three people. Then, it had made a guttural cry and left, hands still twitching with blood.

Since then, there’s been dozens… maybe hundreds, if Iwaizumi thinks of it, attacks. Some spirits are different, some are the same, most of them stick to one area. They all appear from a distant spot, then come and attack the village, killing some in process.

All in the blink of an eye, some groaning in their language, some voices whispering in the mist, whispering for the Avatar to come back.

It’s a little creepy, and honestly, _not_ Iwaizumi’s shit.

“Did you hear?” Ren said suddenly, breaking the silence as she pulls her gaze from the ceiling. “About the benders?”

“About the ones that are basically dying out?”

“Don’t say it like that,” Ren slaps at his arm, he shrugs in reply. “You’re so crude, Hajime-kun.”

“It’s just how I am.”

She ignores that, instead carries on with her initial conversation. “Apparently benders are the only ones that the spirits will at least slightly listen to. There was a water-bender in one of the cities earlier this week that managed to stop the spirit from attacking the village for quite a while.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes,” Ren nods. “And there was a different case earlier with one of the … fire-benders, I want to say. She scared off the spirit entirely. In this time… I wish we had more benders. But I suppose the loss of benders might also lead to the loss of the Avatar, and that’s why the spirits are mad…”

Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches. Are the spirits mad? Is Ren saying ‘mad’ as in insane, or ‘mad’ as in angry? As long as him, Ren, and Takeru (he can’t ignore that he feels protective about Takeru, the kid’s basically a younger brother) are fine, then he doesn’t care much for whatever’s going on with the spirits.

But now they aren’t fine, they’re clutching their bags and ready to evacuate if they shift into a code red.

Iwaizumi feels a hand slipping into his own, Takeru clutching at his hand. He looks down, Takeru having taken a step closer to him to tightly grip his hand out of comfort. With the slightest bit of movement, Iwaizumi squeezes tight in response, a quiet ‘it’ll be okay’.

And they wait.

Ren’s the quiet type, he’s learned that, so he’s fine with her silence. Iwaizumi isn’t the social type, either, neither an extrovert or an introvert and Takeru … seems to be an extrovert, but he’s quiet the entire way.

It’s dead silence, Iwaizumi can’t even hear something outside besides something moving in the wind, some fabric slapping against a metal pole.

Then:

“All villagers, please pay attention. We are on a code red evacuation. I repeat, all villagers, please pay attention. We are on a code red evacuation,” the speaker outside sounds dull, frayed and hard to hear. But Iwaizumi catches the announcement, and by the widening of Ren’s eyes, she does as well.

“Damn,” Iwaizumi swears, the words soft in his mouth. Takeru looks back at up with a quirked brow. “Sorry. We gotta move.”

“What? What is it?”

Takeru’s looking at him with innocent eyes. He’s absolutely weak to him, like Takeru is someone who knows how to turn on his puppy eyes on him.

“There’s a code red. We gonna have to move. And quick.”

Already, the silence outside as been broken by people moving around, whispered murmurings.

“Do you have your bag, Takeru?”

“Yup.”

“All right, let’s go,” the little boy lets go of Iwaizumi’s hand, opts to take his mother’s hand as she opens the door and leads him into the crowd. It’s a small village, not really populated, so the crowd moves quickly. Iwaizumi trots down the steps on after them, ducking into the crowd and making sure to keep the two of them in his view.

The crowd leads to a house, one that was inspired by something in the olden days (what it was, Iwaizumi can’t remember). Within the house is a staircase leading down to a tunnel underground, something that runs long enough that most of the village can pile in without much discomfort.

The roof is a little less than two meters, enough that Iwaizumi doesn’t have to hunch over. Some other people do, people he doesn’t exactly know all too well, but they’re there and that’s the first time Iwaizumi thanks himself for not hitting over 180 centimeters.

The entire tunnel is quiet aside from various murmurs, the sense of rock and water clean in his nose. There’s some kind of echo down further, and Iwaizumi feels across the wall to pass a big crowd of people huddling in the middle. His fingers catch on juts of the wall and he uses that to guide himself.

It takes a few minutes for his eyes to adjust, and just as he can identify someone’s face in the low, near evening-like darkness, a rumble starts out from above.

He’s heard of what roar some spirits release, but it’s never like this.

It’s some type of eerie cry, something that shakes bones and makes silver spoons clack against one another. The bones of his back want to shudder and quake, the hairs that line Iwaizumi’s neck stand up. It billows even under the ground and in the tunnel, a cry of longing and of someone who’s just trying to find someone they’re looking for.

The Avatar. They’re looking for the Avatar, they want them back.

 _Actual chills_ , he thinks to himself, trying to swallow the unease that’s built up in his throat. _Damn. This thing is wild. Never thought it’d actually happen to me._

And then, a scream. It’s loud and piercing and something crashes above them, someone tries to shriek to the left of Iwaizumi and it’s muffled. Someone probably covered their mouth.

Iwaizumi can hear the spirit above him; head more like glittering metal and reflective with bulging eyes, sharpened teeth that drip murky green drool. He has no idea what the spirit looks like, but the image takes sharp on it’s own, the stupid thing destroying houses with clawed hands.

_You’re not gonna find the Avatar here, or anywhere else. So just go._

There’s something uncomfortable nudging at his mind, like a rock that’s embedded into his skull. It’s right behind his eyes, hurts a little bit, the man squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe.

When he does, the thudding overhead stops. Everyone in the tunnel holds their breath, Iwaizumi assumes they’re too afraid to move a single centimeter. After a moment, there’s another roar, more distant, and a crash. Iwaizumi’s nose wrinkles.

They stay there for another… maybe half an hour, he can’t tell much in regards to the time. After a moment, someone’s voted to go out and check if the spirit is still there. After she trots up the stars, they wait, hear the door opening and then closing.

“The spirit’s gone,” she says when she’s returned, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear. “We’re in the clean. However, the damage to the town…”

“How bad is it?” Someone calls from behind Iwaizumi.

“It’s best you see for yourself,” there’s a flash as the girl pushes up her glasses, then turns hard on her heel to lead the others out of the tunnel. All of them clamber out behind her and file out of the house.

Iwaizumi sucks in a breath at the sight of a demolished house that greets him when he emerges from the house, free of stuffy atmosphere. It’s like the entire village has been crushed in one go, clawed marks across roofs, sides of houses, scars on the earth.

“Oh,” someone says beside him, soft. A little breathless quiet word.

“Oh,” Iwaizumi agrees.

Destroyed, everything’s destroyed, or something near it. The attack was swift, and on the side of quiet, Iwaizumi had only heard some of it happening. How fast did the spirits move, how fast did they destroy?

“Oh my gosh,” someone pulls up next to him and it’s Ren, one hand brought to her mouth as it opens in an ‘o’.”This is horrid!”

“Yeah, well,” Iwaizumi doesn’t have to finish his sentence, she knows what he’s going to say. It happened. “Is Takeru with you?”

“Yes, he’s here.”

Takeru comes out next to her, blinking at the light that floods his vision, and lifts a hand to shield his vision. “What do we do now…?”

“We have to work back up to where we were, but at least we have something. I haven’t checked if the house is still intact, but…” There’s a sigh, Ren rests her hand on her son’s head. “We’ll wish for the best.”

She starts off, Takeru following behind her, only to turn back and raise an eyebrow when Iwaizumi doesn’t follow.

Iwaizumi makes eye-contact with her. He can tell that she _knows_ what he’s thinking, what he’s going to say, still staring at him and daring him to say it.

“I’m probably gonna see if I can get a job or something,” Iwaizumi rolls his neck, hears a pop. “One of the neighboring villages or towns or cities. See if I can get some stable money. Are you guys good?”

“I had the sense to keep some with me,” Ren says. “It might be able to last us for a while.”

“Uncle Hajime? You’re going?”

Iwaizumi crouches to Takeru’s height, who puffs out his lip at him.

“Yeah, I think I am. Don’t worry about it, it’ll be for a greater good.”

“You can’t leave!”

Iwaizumi cocks a brow. “Yeah, I can.”

Takeru huffs at him, Iwaizumi laughs and pats the other’s head. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

When he straightens, Ren bows her head. “Thank you for taking care of him with me for the past two years. Do you have everything you need in your bag?”

“Everything I’ll need for now, yeah.”

There’s a pause. Iwaizumi turns to look at her, full-on, straight into brown eyes. “I’ll see you later.”

“Stay safe, Hajime-kun.”

And with that, he takes a step away from them. Then another.


	2. two

He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking, but it’s an irritating long time, and he’s hungry. Iwaizumi prides himself on some of his patience (it’s there _sometimes_ , when it came to certain personality types it’s cut short), as well as some of his basic survival skills, but he hasn’t caught a single bit of food.

“You’re kidding me,” Iwaizumi huffs out as a meadow vole scrambles away. He’s already eaten the food in his bag a few days back, having been hungry and restless and still on the road. And now, three days later, he’s still on the road, still hungry, and nearing pissed off.

The tan man lifts his head, scans the area. There’s no other sight of food in sight, nothing except green, brown, and the color of the pathway winding through the trees once again. Iwaizumi’s mouth twitches, half out of annoyance and exasperation.

 _I don’t exactly have a choice,_ he thinks, then moves heavy feet in that direction, trying to put more energy into his walking pace rather than thinking about how hungry he is.

When he had chosen to wander off in favor of getting a new job, Iwaizumi now regrets not grabbing a map or a compass or someone else or _something_ that could tell him where the hell he’s at, because at this point he has no idea where to progress, nor how to get back to his village.

It’s … somewhere back there. Maybe if he backpedals about four days he’ll get there. Miraculously.

Somehow.

He’ll work on that plan at some point in time.

He keeps walking, swatting at the bugs that flitter around his face, and half a thought comes to him to remind Takeru to put on sunscreen, but Iwaizumi’s tan and Takeru’s not here. Or rather, he’s not with Takeru.

Eventually, the path guides him up and down, through a pile of trees and into an open area. A bunch of rocks line the side, and the pathway tilts up, onto a hill. Iwaizumi sighs, starts to trudge up. After a minute or two, it flat-lines again, then Iwaizumi sucks in a breath:

“Finally.”

Below the hill, a village lays out, small and little. Small and little is _fine_ , Iwaizumi’s used to it. It works. After a moment of looking down at it’s little houses, roofs topped with orange and walls of cream, he glances to the side, at the little trail of rocks that lead down to the village. They’re not exactly stairs, more like jumping about a meter from one to the next, dropping onto the stones.

Guess he just has to avoid screwing up his knee.

Iwaizumi clambers on down, jumps from flat stone to flat down. His feet tingle every time he lands, but he shakes it off and jumps again and again after each time. On the last one, Iwaizumi feels like his feet are cement, but shakes it off anyway. The dirt is littered with little pebbles that Iwaizumi feels through his shoes as he walks towards the village.

When he gets there, he’s not used to the utter silence.

He’s been walking in most of it for the past few days (aside from the rustle of bushes, the occasional crunch of something under him, or the animals around him coming to life), but from a village, it’s different.

There’s people there, quiet little ones flitting from place to place. Some of their eyes linger on Iwaizumi as he walks underneath the bar that announces his entrance to Dateko. There’s someone with white hair and no eyebrows giving him something akin to a death stare as Iwaizumi passes, to which he stares back.

After a moment, the brown-haired one next to the staring man jabs a finger into the other’s arm and uses his hand to forcibly turn his jaw and face in the other direction. Iwaizumi drops his gaze after that, but he still feels eyes upon his back.

There’s chatter around him, but Iwaizumi pays it no heed as he walks up to one of the stalls, pulls out crumbles of money as well as a couple coins. “What’ll this get?”

The person behind the stalls squints at it. He can’t be any older than Iwaizumi, maybe twenty-two at most, but there’s lines underneath his eyes that make him look more tired. “I dunno, maybe some jook?”

_Jook?_

“It’s porridge, basically,” the man doesn’t skip a beat. “Rice congee. You might be able to get that or a Kalenutsco. It’s a type of drink.”

“I’ll get the porridge. How much?”

“Three of the silver coins.”

Iwaizumi pulls them from the pile of coins, slides it across the stall. The man plucks them up and turns to the side, tossing the coins into a bowl he has near the corner in shadow, and starts tossing things into a pot to ground.

He just waits then, leaning his hip against the stall as the man smashes up bits of green and yellow fruits and herbs into a bowl with the flat end of polished wood.

As he waits, someone slides up next to him barely speaks him a look, but the other flutters his fingers, taps a gold coin against the stall.

“What do you want, Kuroo?”

_This guy must be a regular, then._

“Aw, Kamasaki, you should treat your regulars better,” the man hums, words thick of mocking and coyness. Iwaizumi decides there and then that he doesn’t like him, and the thing upon his head (can he even call that _hair?)_

The man, Kamasaki, hasn’t even turned around yet, but Iwaizumi sees a tick in his jaw. Kuroo’s smiling, a crooked one and tilted a little bit to the side, chin settled upon his open palm.

“What do you want, Kuroo?” Kamasaki finally groans, throws up his hands and spares a look over his shoulder. Kuroo straightens.

“I’ll just take a noodle soup.”

“It’s gonna be a while. This guy was first,” Kamasaki waves at Iwaizumi, who arches an eyebrow at Kuroo as the black-haired male looks his direction. “So if your impatient ass can mind the wait, that’d be great.”

Kuroo finally pulls himself entirely off the stall, and there’s- he notices it with a tick of irritation- a couple of centimeters difference between them. “Haven’t seen you around here before.”

“Yeah, I came in today.”

“Well, yeah, I could guess that. See, between you and me … there’s not many people that come into Dateko.”

For a moment, he considers Kuroo. He doesn’t seem to fit in with the aura of Dateko, smile toothy and full of things that set him on edge. There’s also the way Kuroo holds himself, a little languid and a little loose as opposed to the rigid way the people of Dateko held themselves, like someone was holding a wall to their backs and forcing them to stand straight.

“Yeah. I’m looking for a job. One of the spirits destroyed my village so I’m here now. Know any places that I can look at?”

“There are a couple, yeah,” Kuroo’s smile crooks. “I’ll tell ya some, just wait until I grab my food, ‘kay?”

There’s a scraping sound as Kamasaki slides a bowl of jook over to him. Iwaizumi glances down at the bowl of pure white liquid.

“D’ya want any seasonings with that? We’ve got white pepper and soya sauce.”

Iwaizumi decides not to take his chances. “This is fine. Thanks.”

“What’d you say you wanted, Kuroo?”

“The usual,” Kuroo says, slides the gold coin across the stall. “Noodle soup. If you have any fish bits, add some.”

Kamasaki turns back around, leaving the two alone, but Iwaizumi doesn’t miss the way he grumbles (he assumes about Kuroo, because he hears something about rooster head, and if he looks at Kuroo’s hair from a certain angle, it kinda looks like a rooster).

After a moment, Kuroo looks towards him again. “You said your town was overrun by spirits, yeah?”

“Some of it,” he lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “I didn’t stay long enough to see what happened entirely after, I left near straight after.”

Kuroo lets out a slow whistle. “And how long ago was this?”

“Couple days.”

“Ohh, the,” Kuroo pauses for a moment. “ _Aoba_ , right? Is that your town’s name?”

 _Aoba_. A town apart of the legends, supposedly linked with the town _Johsai_ before an earthquake cracked the ground and pushed an entire world in between them. Iwaizumi’s never been to _Johsai_ , but apparently, it has the same structure as Aoba.

“Yeah. That’s it. How’d you guess?”

Kuroo flashes him a smile, one that pushes his buttons or something, he doesn’t know what but Kuroo is _off_. “I do my research.”

He stares at him.

“I’m not joking. I did my research. Call it a hobby but I like to look into spirit attacks. Yakkun and I have this fun little game if we can guess what’s next.”

“You treat it like a game?”

Kuroo’s eyebrow raises at the tension in Iwaizumi’s voice, and he can feel the other scanning him, looking for stress, looking for cracks in him and Iwaizumi makes sure that Kuroo knows. That he knows that he treating it like a game is an easy way to tick Iwaizumi off. He’s not the most morally just of people, but treating it like a game…

Raising his hands in surrender, Kuroo waits until Iwaizumi’s shoulders relax a little bit, Iwaizumi turning back to the jook before him.

He dips the spoon provided into it, and eats it.

Immediately, Iwaizumi’s face contorts, and he tries his hardest not to spit it back out.

“Andddd that’s why I ordered noodle soup,” the other cackles, laugh like a dying animal. “Jook isn’t bad, usually it doesn’t feel like a cat died in your mouth when ya add spices.”

As if on cue, Kuroo’s bowl of noodle soup slides to him, and Kuroo starts on it. There’s something floating on the top that Iwaizumi can’t identify. The black-haired man goes straight for the things floating at the top.

“You must really love me,” he hums. “Adding some fish.”

“You asked for it,” Kamasaki snorts. “Not sure what you were expecting.”

“Ah, well, now life has been injected back into these old man veins of mine~”

“You’re twenty-two, Kuroo!”

“Ah, see, but that’s just my physical age. I’ve aged far past what you think I have.”

Iwaizumi snorts into the jook. The strange smile, crooked and all teeth, appears again. Kuroo smiles weirdly, but it’s not the type of smile that Iwaizumi thinks is false. It’s genuine, even borderline ugly, and that’s what makes it genuine, and not ugly.

“Did I ever give you my name?”

“No.” Doesn’t mean that he doesn’t know his name. “Why does it matter?”

“Well, I said that I could help you with a job searching, right? And it doesn’t feel right if we don’t know each other at least a little, right?”

A pause. Kuroo takes another sip of his soup.

“Iwaizumi.”

“Hm?”

“My name. Iwaizumi Hajime.”

Kuroo’s smile flashes again. “Kuroo Tetsurou~” he hums, voice low in his throat. “And there! We are now properly acquainted, so now we can talk jobs.”

“All right,” Iwaizumi speaks through a mouthful of jook, and that is an experience he didn’t want to have again. Swallow, grimace and barge through it. “So what do you got?”

“Uh uh,” Kuroo waggles his fingers. “Slowly, slowly, Iwaizumi. Patience is key, you know. You’re not going to get a job if you’re an impatient brute.”

Iwaizumi hrumpfs in response. There’s something in the way Kuroo speaks that reminds him of someone, of one of Iwaizumi’s old classmates in school, a boy by the name Tooru, all fake masks and charming smiles.

Kuroo sips at his soup, and finally seems to be ready to talk. There’s something he fiddles with on his wrist, a leather cord with a fish hook on the end of it, and only stops it once he notices Iwaizumi staring.

“So, are you looking for a job here or nearby? Anything in particular?”

“I came here lookin’ for a job, so I don’t really care if it’s in here or not. I mean, it’d be great and convenient, but I’d have to get a house or something, I dunno how it works.”

“Where’d you live previously?”

Iwaizumi’s nose scrunches. “One of my friends in my old village. She’s got a son, so I take care of him while she’s at work and when she’s busy, and I got a room.”

“Nice. Were you staying there near the entirety of the time?”

“I came to Aoba when I was nineteen, so yeah, near ever since,” Iwaizumi nods. “Kinda clicked with her easily, plus I was just a guy fresh outta school without a place to stay. At first I just took care of Takeru for a couple hours a day, and then it kinda … progressed ‘cause I was having villa problems.”

“Nice,” Kuroo hums, taking another sip from his soup. “Well, now that’s in the trash, yeah? You got any plans right now? Settle down in any particular city?”

“Anywhere where I can get a job.”

“Interesting. What do you think you’re good at?”

“Dunno,” Iwaizumi shrugs a shoulder. “Helped my pop with strong-arm stuff, if that helps. Things with muscle and power.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Anyway, so what I’m thinking is that there’s a group of guys here, so you can check them out if you want. They’re at the edge of town, where you came in- the guys near the entrance? They don’t have a particular type of job, but rather all types of jobs. They’re pretty good guys, I’ve met Aone and Futakuchi and they’re considered the guys that lead the entire thing.”

“So what am I supposed to do with them?”

Kuroo’s mouth quirks. “Dunno. You go ask them.”

He doesn’t want to tell the other that he’s been kind of unhelpful. He just met Kuroo, and he supposes that the guy’s a friendly person. Kuroo’s a bit odd, a bit on the strange side.

“Thanks for the help,” Iwaizumi rises from his spot, looking down at the half-eaten jook. “Do you want this?”

“You’re done?”

“Yeah. I gotta go ask the guys.”

“That was a short conversation,” Kuroo sounds borderline disappointed, there’s something hidden in his eyes that Iwaizumi doesn’t want to label.

He grunts in reply. “Thanks, by the way. For… that. Telling me. Telling a random stranger.”

No problem. It’s like I had some super secret, ethereal , second power and sixth sense telling me I had to talk to you,” the other flashes a smile, one hand placed over his heart. “And alas, I follow those little voices floating at the back of my head. They’ve led me to great places and people before.”

“O… kay,” Iwaizumi turns towards Kamasaki, nods. “Thanks for the food. Where’d you say those guys where?”

“Entrance of the town. There’s one with white hair and no eyebrows, you can’t miss him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i didn't want to make the jump awkward alkdjfldf. i wanna get started on the plot, so ... soon. very soon. i hope very soon.

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhh ok so i hope this isn't too confusing but i got an idea that i'm actually super excited for !! comments & kudos are appreciated, my tumblr is @ crowkiiing if u'd like to talk to me / yell at me ! and i'll fix the summary within due time, it's midnight and i haven't slept in a while -


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